VIOLATION OF A SACRED PLACE. - The violation of churches, cemeteries and, in general, of any other thing that has been set aside for divine worship, is brought about by acts or facts through which the elements of the figure of sacrilege (v.) are realized — a vice of irreligion, by which one sins indirectly against God by offending those things that are destined to His worship. And since persons, places and things can be the object of consecration, a distinction is customarily drawn between personal, local and real sacrilege.
The acts that can be the cause of the violation of churches, cemeteries, etc. are the crime of homicide (and suicide must likewise be regarded as such), a great shedding of human blood, voluntarily and injuriously provoked; the burial of an unbeliever or of a person excommunicated after a declaratory or condemnatory sentence; and finally other impious and irreverent uses (can. 1172). It is expressly required that such facts be certain and notorious and that they have been committed in such places. The aforesaid enumeration is exhaustive in character and therefore cannot be subject to extensive interpretation. The same rule holds for the local element: so that, in the case of the violation of a church, it cannot be extended to the adjoining cemetery and vice versa. This is on the basis of the CIC and in contrast with the previous ecclesiastical legislation.
By reason of the violation, the sacred place, although it does not lose its original consecration, nevertheless remains contaminated. Hence the consequences are various. The immediate effect of the violation is that divine ceremonies cannot be celebrated in places thus profaned. Indeed, it is prescribed that if the violation occurs during the sacred functions, these are to be interrupted at once. The institution of reconciliation comes to the aid of repairing the extreme consequences of the violation (v. CHIESA, B, II, iv). Other acts, while not constituting a violation in the strict sense, are held to be offensive to the nature of sacred places and are therefore forbidden in them. Among such profane acts must be numbered civil trials, negotiations, theatrical performances, etc. By express reference, the same discipline laid down with regard to churches is applied also to cemeteries (can. 1207).
Against those who perpetrate the aforesaid crimes, the CIC imposes the penalty of interdict; and it further grants the Ordinary the faculty to apply other suitable penalties. Violators of tombs, besides being struck with interdict, are ipso facto visited with infamy and, if they are clerics, are deposed.
In Italian criminal law, the violation of consecrated churches, tombs and cemeteries is regarded as criminal activity directed against religious sentiment. In art. 404 the Penal Code contemplates offenses against religion by means of vilification of things. Such things, to whose violation the sanction of the law refers, are indicated by an indeterminate expression: "things that form the object of worship, whether consecrated to worship or necessarily destined to the exercise of worship." The object in which the meaning of these latter expressions is concretized includes, among other things, churches, tombs and consecrated cemeteries. But this requirement, which the law mentions, must not be understood as "consecration" in the strict sense. And therefore those places that have become sacred through constitutive blessing alone are also to be considered as such (cf. can. 1497 § 2). The law further lays down as a condition for the punishability of the act that the vilification have occurred in a public place or a place open to the public, or in a place destined for worship. But for this, even a merely presumed publicity is sufficient: so that the act is punishable even if, in the concrete case, the offense was committed in secret. Consequently, in the vilification of churches, cemeteries, etc., publicity is nothing but one aspect of the crime itself. From this standpoint, semi-public oratories and domestic chapels are fully equated with churches, temples, etc. Nevertheless, for a correct application of the law, it is appropriate to have recourse to the wording of the CIC, according to which sacred places are those destined for divine worship or for the burial of the faithful by means of consecration or liturgical blessing (can. 1154).
In the concept of vilification there fall in general all those acts by which it is held that the sacred place has not been suitably respected. Such acts can consist either in material acts against the thing, or also in immaterial acts such as words, speeches, insults, defamations, drawings, etc. It is necessary, finally, that the injurious activity be carried out with specific intent, that is, with the will and awareness of vilifying and despising religion. It is clear that if the things vilified are also damaged or destroyed, there is a concurrence of crimes (art. 404 and 635, no. 3 of the Penal Code). The Italian Code, moreover, punishes with imprisonment from 1 to 5 years anyone who violates a tomb, a sepulcher or an urn. The object of the violation is any structure made in a place of burial for the deposition of human remains. For the crime to exist, it is necessary that the sepulcher actually contain human remains. For this crime specific intent is not required: the motive of the crime may consist in the vilification itself or in theft, damage, etc. In these latter cases the same action gives rise to different legal events, thus bringing about a concurrence of crimes.
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Francesco Ercolani